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“Where I was born was very far from where I’m supposed to be, so I’m on the way home,” said Bob Dylan in an interview.
In words that sounded like lyrics to one of his songs, he continued: “I had ambitions to set out to find – like an odyssey going home somewhere – I set out to find this home that I had left a while back, and I couldn’t remember exactly where it was but I was on my way there...”[i]
This ambition to be on a life-long search for “home” – or his true self – gave Dylan (whose real name was Robert Zvi Zimmerman) the courage and creativity to lead music into an entirely new realm.
Here is a video of Dylan, who is still on his "never-ending tour," over the years.
When he committed the heresy to play electric at the 1965 Newport Folk Festival, his push to break through the boundaries of music was not exactly earning him roses. A full one-third of the audience that night booed him for destroying the folk music they knew and cherished.
While he walked back and forth on stage tuning his electric guitar, one heckler yelled, “Hey, traitor, why don’t you hear yourself?” Others cried, “Bobby, go home!”
When Dylan recalled the incident four decades later, he still struggled for words: “The booing didn’t really – it didn’t really – you know – I have a perspective on the booing because you gotta realize you can kill somebody with kindness too.”
At the time, he was undeterred. He smiled sheepishly like a naughty schoolboy, shrugging his shoulders as if he himself didn’t quite know what was happening, as if things were out of his hands.
Unperturbed, like an indifferent teenager who simply didn’t care what people thought, he abruptly started singing in his rough, snarling voice, turning his back to the audience, hunched over, cradling the guitar as if to protect his new “baby” from the audience and its outrage.
Looking back on the incident decades later, Dylan explained: “I didn’t want to give something away that was –” (he fell into a long silence, weighing whether to say the word) “– dear to me, or something,” He kept doing his own unique thing, escaping his own immense popularity that had become an obstacle, inventing a style that would transform for all time what was possible in music.
“I wrote a lot of songs in a quick amount of time,” Dylan said. “I felt like I discovered something no-one else had ever discovered, and I was in a certain arena that no-one else had ever been in before, ever – although,” he quickly inserted a disclaimer, “I may have been wrong about that.”[ii]
Wittingly or not, Dylan became a leader of his generation because he gave voice to what that generation needed to hear. At the source of his leadership was an intense desire to find his own power, a power not based on a job title or wealth or popularity.
No two humans are alike. Dylan’s task was not to emulate the heroes or sages of the past, no matter how great they were. Rather his job was, and is, to know himself, find his unique purpose in life, and stay true to that purpose until he fulfills it.
This concept, unfolding the unique you and doing something that has never been done before, is central to leadership. Dylan ended up reaping rich rewards for his courage to be himself. He became a star, and he rewrote music history.
What do you think? Has Bob Dylan been a leader? If no, why not? If yes, when did he lead, and when did he stop leading? I look forward to reading you on http://thomaszweifel.blogspot.com/.
P.S. This article is adapted from my book The Rabbi and the CEO: The Ten Commandments for 21st Century Leaders (co-authored with Rabbi Aaron L. Raskin).
People who hate Bob Dylan should have their head examined! He never claimed, or wanted to be a leader but certainly was and continues to be an inspiration to many, myself included. Talk about a life lived in a truly genuine fashion and never trying to live up to the expectations of anyone but oneself. I can only marvel and admire! Will always remember the first time I heard Like a Rolling Stone growing up in Zurich in the '60s what a revelation to a teenager!
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